Rubik's Brand lawsuit against The Cubicle

Will this actually go to trial? Does thecubicle, a store that sells $7.00 plastic toys to a very limited market, have the financial resources to fight this? If they have the financial resources, do they have the stomach for it? The US civil legal system has little regard for who is "right", especially in cases like these where there is such a mismatch in resources between the two parties.
 
Max Cruz said:
If my seventh attempt at the bar exam has taught me anything, thecubicle.us is going to get blasted.
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Do you care to elaborate? I'm no lawyer, I've never taken the bar or even the LSAT, but I just can't see past the argument that the patent expired, and the form is inherent to the function and therefore not subject to trademark protection.
 
One Wheel said:
Do you care to elaborate? I'm no lawyer, I've never taken the bar or even the LSAT, but I just can't see past the argument that the patent expired, and the form is inherent to the function and therefore not subject to trademark protection.
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Whoever has more money wins
 
I feel that Rubik's is out of hand. I watched a video a few days ago by Lazer0M0nkey (I think it was) and he explained the situation very well. What he said was that non-cubers would often think any cube is a Rubik's branded cube. This would cause them to go buy a Rubik's cube. Essentially all that this is doing is spreading the cubing community. It is not harming or affecting Rubik's negatively in any way. In fact, it is driving up revenue for Rubik's if anything. So that's just my thoughts on the entire thing. Correction: The video was from EzCubing.

Underwatercuber said:
Whoever has more money wins
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It isn't all about money. In fact, it is about who wins the case.
 
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genericcuber666 said:
and you win a case with money. Whether or not the cubicle is right dosent matter if they dont have the money to pay for a legal team long enough to win the case. Even if they win they will be in a horrible state
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Basically my thoughts
 
When I ran my scuba diving computer company we faced lawsuits for ridiculous reasons, and in each case it was cheaper to pay the complainant than to defend ourselves. In many cases with small companies you are better off declaring bankruptcy, then have a friend go to the auction that the bank holds to auction off your stuff, and have a friend buy it all back. Then the legal entity no longer exists and you can start another company immediately and resume business. This is what SNK did (makers of King of Fighters and Neo-Geo). They declared bankruptcy, had a distant relative buy back the assets at the auction, and then resumed business under the name SNKPlaymore.

There is one other option though. And that is to cross complain and sue the person who is suing you. This is a risky move but it can essentially cancel the lawsuit. This happened when Capcom tried to sue Data East, saying that Fighter's History copied Street Fighter 2. Data East immediately sued Capcom, saying that Street Fighter 2 copied the earlier Data East game ('Karate Champ'). The end result was both lawsuits were dropped and both companies reach an agreement to COOPERATE and boost each other's business by free sharing of some game concepts.

Since any patents on Rubik's cubes have long since expired, cubicle could try to sue Seven Towns on anti-trust complaints (trying to achieve a monopoly). Being found guilty of attempting to achieve a monopoly carries a much worse penalty than some sort of copyright infringement.
 
Adding on to what I said earlier, Rubik's is pretty much trying to eliminate all competition which will hurt their business. Now I know this would usually drive business revenue up, but this may actually bring it down. After all these lawsuits being in the news of Rubik's getting rid of all competition, who would want to buy a cube from a money thirsty business like that? Also, Rubik's is targeting the retailers saying that "they make their own knock-off versions. If a user uses the defendant's cube (TheCubicle) they will be dissatisfied with the product compared to the plaintiff's (Rubik's) cube, as they have a long history of QC." Now I know two things that you are thinking-first off, TheCubicle isn't even making cubes. The only way they could be considered making their own cubes is Cubicle Labs or Pro Shop. They are just tensioning, lubing, re-stickering, and adding magnets to the cubes. Though even then they still aren't making their own cubes. Second, you are probably thinking that there is no absolute way that a Rubik's brand cube is better than any cube that TheCubicle sells. Even then, you would be right. A few months ago a close friend of mine asked me if I had any cubes to get him started with cubing. So I just bought him one with my order that cost me $2.21. (If any of you are curious it was a clearance MoFangJaoShi.) Even then the $2 cube was better. I really think that Rubik's is just hurting their business by doing this. Because who knows, after this Rubik's may target other cube businesses like SpeedCubeShop or other retailers. And then going back to what I said earlier if this gets in the news (which it most likely will and is already on Bloomberg) it will drive people away from Rubik's because they would realize that Rubik's is just another money thirsty toy company. Adding on to all of this, look at cubing competitions around the world, those are also just drawing business into Rubik's, not TheCubicle. As practically all non-cubers would think that any cube is a Rubik's cube, many people who want to start speedcubing would most likely start with a Rubik's branded cube. And many of these competitions are funded by TheCubicle, which give gift cards to the winners of the competition. I would be really sad to see TheCubicle go as I buy all of my cubes there. I have absolutely nothing against SpeedCubeShop, but I was originally going to buy a Cosmic Gans Air SM there and then saw the processing time warning for it. It said, "due to extremely high demand, please allow up to 30 business days for your cube to ship." Why would I wait 30 business days for a cube to be made NOT to ship? TheCubicle Pro Shop does it in one week. I'll stop my blabbering and rant there. I just really hope that Rubik's loses the lawsuit or at the bare minimum, TheCubicle doesn't go out of business.
 
They made RSC before they sued the Cubicle. That was a good plan if they are getting ready to sue all cube stores.
 
By the way, I am more of an SCS fan, but I really would love to buy Cubicle's Cosmics when I get very good at speedcubing.
 
CelloJames said:
To me, time to wait doesn't matter if the cube is pro quality. If I'm waiting an entire month on a crappy Rubik's brand, then I'll reconsider purchasing it.
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Yeah though I was getting a Gans Air SM and I knew that the Pro Shop at TheCubicle was right around the same quality, if not better. Also, I knew that many of the top cubers were using Pro Shop cubes.
 
theawesomecuber said:
I seriously doubt that one distributor losing a lawsuit would result in the death of every new cube.
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This case is about a lot more than "a distributor." A lot of the case hinges on the pro shop "manufacturing" cubes, which means that if Rubik's wins they can pretty much immediately shut down SCS no questions asked. I don't know if anybody else in the US does custom cubes on any scale, but shutting down two of the biggest US distributors (and likely others) would have a chilling effect on cube availability and innovation.
 
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